


Into the Secret Garden

by Tammany



Series: Sweet Mystrade Fluff [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Breaking and Entering, Brothers, Childhood Memories, Gen, Holmes Brothers, Mind Palace, Reveal, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2567030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok, this can be seen as free-standing OR as an alternate sequel to "Control."  I don't think "Classified" and "Into the Secret Garden" can both be true at once, though, as each is Sherlock's first experience of Mycroft and Lestrade as a pairing. </p><p>This one is at least as much about the two brothers as it is about the couple, though: Mystrade is more of a gate into Sherlock and Mycroft than it is an end in itself.</p><p>Note: It occurs to me that "Classified" and "Into the Secret Garden" can both be true, but only if "Classified" happened first and Sherlock REALLY "deleted" the memory while drinking tea at Starbucks...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Secret Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Italiano available: [Into the Secret Garden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6078363) by [Moonflower75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonflower75/pseuds/Moonflower75)



Sherlock smiled a tight, smug little smile as he jimmied the window in the pantry of Mycroft’s Pall Mall flat and oozed in bonelessly, like a garden slug. In his mind he was doing a very uncool little victory dance and punching the air. In his mind, he was composing gleeful little texts to John. (Penetrated Perimeter—The British Government Fails Again! SH) In his mind, he could already imagine his brother in a tizzy, nose pink, eyes smaller than ever, spitting mad and helpless to do anything about it, as the last thing either of them wanted was MI6 breathing down their necks over inadequate security. None of that showed, though: showing it would be massively uncool, and Sherlock loved being cool, even if he hated to admit he loved being cool. Most of all he loved being cooler than Mycroft, who was, it had to be said, the very queen of uncool.

That he would say happily. Mycroft might be the British Government. He might be Mr. Three-Piece-Suit. He might be MI6, when he wasn’t the British Government or out on loan to the CIA. He might be a bloody national treasure-but he wasn’t cool.

Well…

All right—the “MI6 when he wasn’t on loan” thing? That was pretty cool, in a creepy, sick sort of way. But Sherlock wasn’t going to admit it, and nowadays he could always claim the “wiped out Moriarty’s network in a single gamer-boy two-year raid” thing, which was really just as cool, wasn’t it?

He sighed. He still hadn’t reached a point with John where he could talk about his two-year raid on the network. It was a depressing truth: they’d not yet sat in front of the fireplace downing scotch and laughing like hyenas over Sherlock taking out Moriarty’s people single-handed, one hit at a time…and he’d so looked forward to that. The victory, the validation, the uber-coolness reflected in John’s impressed eyes. And it was years and years since he and Mycroft had been able to share that kind of giggling enthusiasm over anything… That sort of trust and shared enjoyment had died years ago, when Mycroft had shifted from being an already oppressively authoritarian older brother to becoming The Suit. The man who arranged things. Her Majesty’s Fixer—and Sherlock’s archenemy, cleaning up every mess Sherlock created, and scolding like an angry crow over every lovely, chaotic, radical misstep.

His brother had grown up—stopped being one of Peter Pan’s lost boys. Become a grownup Wendy fretting over stupid, grownup things, no longer interested in pirates or play. Completely lost to any hope of cool…

Nothing had filled that gaping hole in Sherlock’s life until John.

He scowled, as he slithered silently through Mycroft’s dark rooms: pantry to kitchen, kitchen to dining room, dining room to sitting room doorway, where Sherlock paused, heart pounding.

He’d thought his brother was out. He’d been camped outside for hours, waiting to be sure. Granted, there were ways in and out that he couldn’t surveil—well, after all, it was the British Government’s flat. Sherlock knew what that meant: hidden ways in and out; a panic room set up somewhere on the premises; locked safes and cupboards it would take even Sherlock time to locate and crack. But Mycroft so seldom made use of any of those things. He lived his role: a minor civil servant with enough old family money to live on Pall Mall and maintain a membership in the Diogenes Club, but with no ambition and no imagination. He was boredom personified—regular in his ways, predictable in his habits, open and overt in his choices. Sherlock would have bet his very life on Mycroft not using secret entrances and the superb covert systems of MI6 for anything less than a catastrophe.

But Mycroft was here—here in his rooms when he shouldn’t be. Or someone was. Sherlock could see dim, flickering firelight from the sitting room. For a brief second he felt fear jolt through him, thinking perhaps a house fire, or perhaps arson of some sort. Then his mind, always quick and always logical, sussed out the angles of the shadows and the source of the light, and determined it had to come from the little inset fireplace—the London equivalent of the old stone fireplaces and hearths at Holmescroft. Now he was aware, he could hear the hiss and pop of the gas fire—and, even more unsettling, the occasional creak of the leather upholstery on the sofa, and the huff and sigh of two people, one awake, one sleeping.

Sherlock frowned. Perhaps two of Mycroft’s staff or security guards abusing the opportunity provided by a fine Pall Mall residence with the master away? Not that hard to imagine. It would probably be tempting, if they knew Mycroft would be gone for long. Nice furniture, comfortable sofa, great fireplace. An opportunity for a private tryst in better surroundings that might otherwise be available…

Sherlock slipped quickly past the door, and angled himself on the other side of the frame, where he could look into the room at an angle, counting on the rather well-planned luxury of the big plate-glass mirror on one wall—a window that gave the knowing observer a view of the entire room. He and Mycroft had planned that detail together, aside from Mycroft’s MI6 advisors. Let the spies count on their bugs and cameras—that anyone might turn off or deceive. Mycroft himself could count on something older, sneakier, less likely to be considered by modern espionage agents addicted to high tech answers. A well-placed mirror could tell you so much, and if you stood in shadow, largely hidden by a door frame, the odds of being noted in return were slight.

The room was dim, barring the fire in the fireplace, and a small lamp on the far end table. It was still. Nothing moved. But on the sofa were two bodies under a single heavy duvet, one reading by the lamplight, reading glasses half down his nose, the other curled beside him, asleep, head resting on the first man’s chest, held secure by the first man’s arm.

Sherlock’s world seemed to come apart.

Lestrade, he thought. Lestrade and Mycroft.

He’d never considered…

He’d never thought…

Lestrade—Lestrade had been married. No, he thought to himself, furious at his own stupidity. Married didn’t mean exclusively straight, did it? If anything, John’s repeated insistence on being not-gay was more likely to suggest that exclusivity than the mere fact of marriage. Bisexuals married all the time. Gay men married all the time, choosing security and respectability and offspring over the challenges of active gay life. He scrambled through his mind palace, though the room dedicated to Lestrade—and still found no obvious clues. But, then… Lestrade. An agent in his own right…

Mycroft’s agent. Presumably Mycroft’s lover….

No, not just a presumption. Mycroft stirred in his sleep, made a small sound, shifted slightly. Lestrade paused in his reading, smiled fondly, tightened his grip around Mycroft’s shoulders, and leaned down, placing a light kiss on Mycroft’s tumbled hair. “Shhhhh. Sleep, my lover,” he said, softly, voice no longer its usual Estuary twang, but heavy with West Country accents, using the common West Country term that could as easily mean friend or family as sexual partner. “Sleep, lover. That’s right…”

The endearment might, in Somerset, be somewhat ambiguous: friend or otherwise, as likely to be a pal as anything. The gesture, though, and the tone of voice, and most of all the expression on Lestrade’s face wiped away any doubt in Sherlock’s mind. Lestrade and his brother were lovers, and had successfully hidden the fact from Sherlock. That alone was upsetting, humiliating—to be beaten at the Great Game again by brother Mycroft, and on something so….so….

He shivered. Mycroft didn’t do people. He didn’t do friends, and when he did lovers, well—they weren’t “lovers.” They were shags. There was a difference. One didn’t fall asleep crammed onto a sofa with a shag, asleep on the man’s breast like a pet, a child—a lover. A shag was for shagging and having it over with. At most one might spend the night in the same bed; one wouldn’t— _Mycroft_ wouldn’t—pursue further contact, wasting an evening lolling in the sitting room just for the companionship and touch.

Sherlock couldn’t imagine Mycroft falling asleep on anyone’s breast at all. It was wrong—backward to nature. Sherlock had, as a child, often fallen asleep on Mycroft’s breast: on long drives home from family trips, or in the evening when Mycroft read to him, giving Mummy and Father their after-dinner alone-time, or when Sherlock had once again given in to tantrums and despair at yet another hurdle Mycroft could easily master that defeated Sherlock’s best efforts. Mycroft wasn’t the one who lay within the arch of anyone’s arm—he was one arching his arm around, and then only around Sherlock. Perhaps Mummy and Father, during family catastrophes. Sherlock could recall Mycroft’s arm going around Father the same way when Grandfather had died. But only family—only those most intimate to Mycroft, and even then Mycroft provided the sheltering arm. He wasn’t sheltered himself—and the only times Sherlock had tried to return the favor, his brother had locked the bedroom door and wept alone, growling for Sherlock to go away.

But there Mycroft lay, in a relaxed, lazy tumble, hair fluffy and uncombed, as unruly as if he’d showered and toweled it dry and no more than that. Lestrade’s arm curved over his shoulders and back; his hand held the turn of Mycroft’s shoulder—and Mycroft’s hand covered his. Mycroft’s face looked strange, and Sherlock couldn’t place the strangeness.

Drugs? he thought to himself. No—Mycroft wouldn’t use unless he was ill or injured, and surely Sherlock would have been told if that were the case? Surely Mycroft would be safely tucked in one of MI6s secret, carefully guarded clinics if it were serious, or he’d be tucked up in his own bed if it were less so. This was different. Strange, but familiar…so familiar.

Somewhere in his mind palace, a memory stirred and called out to him. He closed his eyes and followed the call, back and back, down flights of spiraling stairs, until he stood in front of Mycroft’s wing. The portals into the wing were imposing, these days. Tall, ebony doors with wrought-iron hinges and gleaming black rivets, all set into a massive gothic-arched door frame.

He could remember a time the door had been smaller, simpler, less intimidating. He could remember a time when it had been a door almost too small to go through: a door that was always just a little shorter than Sherlock, at whatever age he was—he’d had to duck to go through to Mycroft’s magical, secret rooms. He’d patterned the original door after the door in Alice’s wonderland—the little door too small to pass through until you’d drunk the bottle and shrunk to the size of a mouse. You’d turn the key and open the door, and you’d still have to duck low—and then you’d find yourself in the garden, and once you were in the garden anything was possible. Sherlock had loved Peter Pan and Treasure Island. Mycroft, though, had loved the delicate, intricate logic and illogic of Wonderland and the world beyond the looking glass.

He looked for that door, now. It had to still exist, he thought: he’d never exactly deleted it. He’d just built another door, and another after that, each colder and darker and more threatening as Mycroft grew up and Sherlock grew into—whatever he’d grown into. The old door had to still be there, though—the door into Mycroft’s secret garden, where lilies told you secrets and knowledge was magic.

He turned in his mind palace, and turned again, and again, and there it was. There—behind the curtain of vines that jumbled over the wall—ivy and clematis, honeysuckle and twining perennial morning glory, and high up a swatch of rambling roses. Sherlock reached out and pulled the vines aside, and there was the door: Mycroft’s Alice Door. It was as different from the Black Door as day is to night. It was set into golden sandstone walls, and though its frame was again a gothic arch, the arch was pale, the stone warm to Sherlock’s hand, the texture pleasantly grainy, hovering between smooth and rough. The door was golden oak. The hinges of this door were wrought iron, also, but in delicate twisted forms, like the vines that hid it away. There was a keyhole beside an old-fashioned thumb-latch handle. Sherlock fished in the pocket of his Belfast coat, and pulled out the key, turning it with one hand as the other gripped the handle and pressed the thumb-latch down. The door opened easily, and Sherlock ducked inside.

It was green—so green. The back garden at Mummy and Father’s Dower House. There was an apple tree carrying blossom and fruit at the same time, and a bird singing, and each of them meant something, though after all these years Sherlock had to work to match meaning to symbol. Blossom and fruit—Mycroft telling him firmly that such a thing was a logical paradox, but that manipulation of grafts and control of growth factors could make it so In spite of that. Mycroft’s voice saying, “You see—anything is possible. Don’t rule anything out until you’ve proven it can’t be so _this time._ Just because it’s improbable doesn’t mean it’s wrong.” And the bird—that was perseverance. Sing on—keep on. Never stop: the answers are there.

He heard the call again, from the back corner of the garden, by the old rope swing that hung from the lower branch of the plane tree. He walked carefully back, hearing the lilies whisper as he passed and the roses mutter back. A rabbit with a waistcoat and pocket watch watched him from the shadows under the lilac…

A boy sat on the swing, kicking idly to keep the swing in motion. The swing moved in a slow, lazy, relaxed arc. The boy was, perhaps, twelve, with hair the color of carrots and freckles covering his face like the speckles on a thrush’s breast. He wore a short-sleeved oxford shirt and safari shorts, with fisherman’s sandals buckled firmly on his feet: old-fashioned boy’s clothing, classic, that could date all the way back to Five Children and It—to the Pevensies of Narnia—to the Railway Children and Cristopher Robin and Jane and Michael Banks. He was an English boy—a very English boy—and Sherlock knew without thinking twice that there was a twist of kitchen twine, and a compass, and a folding pocket knife in his pockets, as well as a packet of sticking plasters because he wasn’t quite sure he wouldn’t cut himself with the knife. He was that sort of boy: by all means, try the knife, but have the sticking plasters just in case. He’d taught Sherlock far more about advance planning than Sherlock had ever liked to admit.

“Mike,” Sherlock said, softly, and the boy looked up at him and smiled—and Sherlock knew, instantly, what day it was, and why he’d recognized the expression on Mycroft’s sleeping face.

“This is the day you went away to school for the first time, isn’t it?”

Mike nodded. “Yes. I couldn’t get back in for the longest time, but today I found the key in my pocket, and it was easy as pie.” He pumped his legs and swung higher, smiling. “I missed you, Billy.”

Sherlock strode across the grass, plucked the boy out of the swing, and held him tight, spinning in circles the way the boy had once swung him—around and around until the sky spun counter to his own spin, and they tumbled to the grass, giggling together. “I missed you, too, Mike.”

He wondered, in a dark corner of his heart, what had happened that day—what hurt he or Mike had taken that locked the door to the garden and forced Sherlock to build the first of the dark doors that followed. He remembered his own first day—the noise and the confusion, and the teacher furious at him for having done what he had thought he was supposed to do, and the other boys laughing and calling names. It had been a bad day—a very bad day. But he’d never thought to ask if his brother’s day had been similarly terrible and terrifying. He’d only been five, and even less likely to take other people into consideration than he was as an adult. Only now did it occur to him that Mike, at twelve, had been even less prepared and less resilient, going into his own threatening boy-pack. Older boys—boys at the age to hit and kick and play carefully thought out pranks on a scalding ginger covered in freckles, looking and acting like something straight out of another era…for that matter, a very quiet, good boy of another era.

Bruises, he thought. A bloodied nose and a black eye. Was that right, or was that another time? Did it matter? He knew the bloodied nose had happened, and the black eye—if not that day, soon enough thereafter. And while it wasn’t Dickens’ time, people still expected boys to take it, and toughen up.

Mycroft had toughened up, he thought. The Iceman. The genius who bullied all England if necessary—and America and Russia and whoever else needed a solid shove.

But the man who slept on Lestrade’s breast had the face of the boy in the garden—a soft face, a sweet face, the face of someone who was secure and happy. Someone who had come safe to rest after long, hard trials. The key had been found. The door had opened. The garden was still there.

Sherlock knelt and hugged the boy. “I missed you, Mike,” he said again. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“You’ll visit again?”

“Yes.”

He stood, then—and was back in the real world, staring in the mirror, watching Lestrade stroke the hair away from his brother’s brow. His heart seemed to twist in his own breast. He knew how safe Mike felt—and he knew because he’d slept on Mike’s breast more than once. It was good to feel arms around you, and to know someone who loved you kept watch.

Wind swept down the hall—a gust that made the fire leap and flash, and sent chill drafts everywhere. Mycroft grumbled, and woke. “Did I leave a window open?” he asked Lestrade, voice grumpy at the interruption. “I could have sworn—“

Sherlock cleared his throat. “No,” he said, a bit hoarse. “No. It was me. You need to set a better alarm on the pantry window. I was able to circumvent it rather easily.”

The two men scrambled from the sofa so fast the duvet went flying, then competed for point position defending each other. In the end Mycroft managed to take the lead, standing between Sherlock and Lestrade. His face was the face of the Iceman—with a terrified boy inside, seeing the door locked, the garden walled away, the key lost…

“Sherlock.” His voice was a tense tenor growl, edgy and angry.

“I know. Rotten timing,” Sherlock said, ruefully. “Really.” He met his brother’s eyes, for once in his life sorry to have ruffled his feathers. “It’s all right, Mike. Really it is.”

Mycroft stared at him, still strung tight. Lestrade put a hand on his lover’s shoulder and moved forward to stand beside him.

“Hello, Sherlock.”

“Lestrade.”

“Surprised us.”

“I know. I wanted some information on the smuggling going on out of Portugal. Breaking in seemed easier than hacking MI6’s computers. Q gets so cranky when I try that.”

“Not surprised.”

They were all three silent, then, all of them unsure what came next. At last Sherlock said, as boldly as he could. “By the way—welcome to the family. Now you can take Mummy and Father to see their favorite shows.”

Mycroft scoffed. “Sherlock, we’re keeping this well under the radar—Mummy and Father’s too, but MI5 and 6 especially.”

“Don’t,” Sherlock said, sternly. “Someday someone nastier than me is going to come in a window, and you’re better off if you’ve got MI5 and 6 already on your side.”

“Said so…” Lestrade muttered. “Really, My…”

Mycroft huffed, and scowled and crossed his arms. “Once it’s out they’ll be all over us.”

“And you’ll make sure they regret every insult and error,” Sherlock said. “You’re Mycroft Holmes. They’re going to give way, if you bully them enough.”

Lestrade laughed, and slipped his arm down, wrapping Mycroft’s waist tight. “See? Listen to your baby brother, My.”

“You’re teaming up against me,” Mycroft grumbled.

“Of course we are,” Sherlock snipped, smiling. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for an ally you’d actually listen to? I hoped John would manage it, but no.” He grinned at Lestrade. “Keep him in line for me, Inspector. I expect great things from you.” Then he looked back at Mycroft. “About Portugal…”

Mycroft sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, all right—I’ll get you past Q’s safeguards. Greg, pour us all a scotch, this may take awhile.”

Lestrade grinned and sloped off to find the decanter of scotch and the good glasses. Mycroft looked worriedly into Sherlock’s eyes. “You’re…not planning on giving me trouble, are you?”

Sherlock smiled. “No, brother-mine. For once, I’m not.” He thought about it, and said, “He’s a good man. And he’s good for you. That’s enough.”

It wasn’t—quite. But seeing Mycroft sleep on Lestrade’s breast—that was enough. And so they drank their scotch and Sherlock got his information, and to everyone’s amusement he insisted on leaving the way he’d come—out the pantry window. Then Mycroft’s house was quiet again, and the fire burned softly, and the two men returned to the sofa, and all was as it had been before Sherlock had broken in.

And in Sherlock’s mind palace the blossom flowered beside the red, ripe fruit, and the bird sang in the apple tree, and the boy pumped his legs and flew up high and higher, and the largest of the Dark Doors faded into dream.


End file.
